Shimira ITPricing
Real numbers, before you commit.
Most agencies make you sit through a sales call to hear a rate. Here are ours, in USD, starting points you can actually budget against.
What you're building
Four tiers, and the honest difference between them.
A prototype proves the idea. A production MVP carries real customers. The difference in price is the invisible engineering — security, tests, monitoring, and the edge cases — which is exactly the work a demo never shows.
Prototype / validation build
from $7,500 · 3–6 weeks
Prove the idea works and that people want it, before committing a production budget.
- The core flow, working end to end
- Real data, not mock screens
- Enough polish to demo, pilot, or put in front of investors
- Deployed somewhere you can share
What it isn't: Not hardened for paying customers at scale: limited edge-case handling, light test coverage, no formal security review. That's deliberate, and it's what keeps the price here.
Production MVP
from $25,000 · 2–4 months
A first version real customers can pay for and rely on, built to be extended rather than replaced.
- Everything in a prototype, engineered to hold up
- Authentication, roles, and permissions done properly
- Payments with verified webhooks, if you're charging
- Tests on the flows that make money
- Monitoring, backups, and separate staging and production
- 3 months of post-launch bug fixes
Production application
from $50,000 · 3–6 months
A full product or internal platform with multiple user types, integrations, and real operational demands.
- Everything in a production MVP
- Several user roles and an admin layer
- Integrations with the systems you already run
- Built for the data volumes you expect, not today's
- Mobile alongside web where it's needed
Complex SaaS / platform
from $75,000 · 6+ months
A product other businesses depend on: multi-tenant, compliance-bound, or AI at the core.
- Everything in a production application
- Multi-tenant architecture and billing
- Compliance work (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2) where it applies
- AI features with evaluation and guardrails, where relevant
- Scale and performance engineering
Where these numbers come from, and what drives them up or down, is broken down in our custom software development cost guide, including a calculator you can model your own project with.
How you pay for it
Three ways to engage.
Fixed price
Prototypes from $7,500
Production MVPs from $25,000
You know what you need built. We scope it, quote one price, and deliver against it, no meter running.
- One agreed price, agreed before we start
- Milestone-based payments tied to what you can see
- Change requests priced openly, never assumed
Time & materials
from $28 / hour
Blended ~$32; senior specialists to ~$45
For work that changes as you learn. You pay for the hours spent, see exactly where they go, and can steer week to week.
- Billed on real, logged hours, reviewed with you
- Reprioritise or change direction any sprint
- Start small, scale the team as it proves out
Dedicated team
from $2,800 / month
Per developer, full-time, see the rate card
Developers who work only on your product, full-time, as an extension of your team, the offshore model most of our long-term clients settle into.
- The same people, month after month
- Your tools, your standups, your roadmap
- Roughly half the loaded cost of a local hire
Dedicated developer rate card
Full-time, billed monthly, minimum one month.
Need a full squad, designer, backend, frontend, QA? Tell us the shape of it and we'll put a team rate in writing.
Included in every engagement
The things you shouldn't have to ask for.
- You own all source code and IP on delivery
- NDA signed before we discuss anything sensitive
- Working software reviewed every sprint
- USD invoicing, EUR or GBP on request
- No recruitment fees, no lock-in contracts
- Timezone overlap with your working day
Cost guides
Budgeting for this?
Real 2026 numbers, worked examples, and the hidden costs most quotes leave out.
How much does custom software development cost in 2026?
Real 2026 numbers: cost by project type, hourly rates across every major region, the hidden costs quotes leave out, and a free calculator to model your own estimate.
Read the guide →How much does AI app development cost in 2026?
Build ranges by use case, a worked monthly model-cost example, RAG vs. fine-tuning, ROI maths, and the hidden costs most AI quotes skip.
Read the guide →How much does software maintenance cost in 2026?
The 15–25% rule with worked examples, a maintenance calendar, typical monthly plans, a contract checklist, and what happens to software nobody maintains.
Read the guide →Pricing questions
What buyers ask about the numbers.
A prototype proves the idea works and that people want it. A production MVP carries real, paying customers. The gap in price is the engineering you can't see in a demo: proper authentication and permissions, payments that can't double-charge, tests on the flows that make money, monitoring, backups, and the edge cases real users find. A prototype deliberately skips most of that, which is what keeps it at $7,500.
Usually yes, and that's the normal path. We build prototypes on the same stack we build production software with, so the work carries forward instead of being thrown away. What gets added is the hardening, not a rewrite.
Because our team is based in India, not because we cut corners. You get the same engineering standard at roughly half the loaded cost of a local hire, the entire reason companies build offshore in the first place.
They're honest starting points, not hidden ceilings. Real numbers come after a short scoping call, but we put the estimate in writing before you commit to anything, and we don't revise it mid-project without telling you why.
USD by default, so US clients budget in their own currency. EUR and GBP are available on request. No conversion surprises on the invoice.
Fixed price if you know exactly what you need. Time & materials if the scope will evolve as you learn. A dedicated team if this is ongoing product work. Not sure? Tell us the problem and we'll recommend the one that costs you least.
Tell us the scope. We'll put a number on it.
A short call, then a written estimate you can hold us to, free, and yours whether we work together or not.